A Risk Worth Taking
by Risk-23
Summary: Spot Conlon meets Fiona, a girl with a limp worse then Crutchy's and a mouth worse than a sailor's. When Spot begins a turf war with her boyfriend, can she make things better or only worse? Bad summary please read and let me know what you think...


Disclaimer; I don't own Newsies, it's music, story or characters. I wish I did however because that would just be very, very, very, nice. Mmmhm. I own Fiona and Connor and any other original characters. Hope you like it! Let me know what you think.  
  
"Fiona hurry up with that water!" My hands clenched tightly around the handle of the tin pail, and I tried to move quicker while at the same time not slop any water over the sides. Then I would have to stop and wipe it up and that would infuriate my aunt all the more. Trudging up a flight of stairs, I finally reached my uncle's bedroom. My aunt grabbed the pail out of my hands and roughly shoved me away.  
  
She moved fast, with the steady pace of someone who had done the same routine over and over again. I averted my eyes as she ripped the soiled sheet away from my uncle's thin, pasty body and began cleaning him. My Uncle Henry had been working at his job in one of New York Cities many factories when he had seized up and had an attack. The doctor's said it was a stroke; rather unusual for someone his age, he was barely into his forties but not unheard of. He could no longer work, nor could he clothe, bathe, or feed himself. Most days he laid abed, waiting for my Aunt Matilda to come and flip him over so he wouldn't get sores.  
  
I loved my Uncle Henry very much. He used to protect me from Aunt Matilda's rages which were more frequent since his 'attack'. Now I could barely stand the sight of him lying there, one side of his face drooping down, his eyes listless, dead. I tried to keep him company when I could, but it pained me to see the once strong, robust man a mere shadow of his former self. I know it sounds selfish of me, and in truth it is. But I guess I saw it as the right way for me to deal with it all.  
  
Don't get me wrong, I'm no prize myself. At seventeen I had no beaus, no job, practically no schooling having come from a family that believed that women were meant to take care of a household and raise children, not learn ideas and crazy notions that would help them to rise beyond their purpose in life. Truly, the men in my family are insufferable idiots.  
  
I lived with my aunt and uncle in a small two-story apartment on the outskirts of Manhattan close to the Brooklyn Bridge. My father, mother, and two younger brothers had gone back to Ireland from where we came to take care of my father's ailing mother. I knew they wouldn't be coming back, and I couldn't wait to get out of here as well. We came from a small town called Innishclagh which was on the Western coast in County Clare. Innishclagh was a fishing village off the Aran Islands and I missed the islands dearly.  
  
I had been left in Manhattan to help my aunt take care of my uncle. My aunt pushed her curly brown hair off of her face and with a wave of her hand barked at me to get down to the kitchen and check on the bread dough that was rising. I nodded and left silently, not wishing to incur her wrath anymore.  
  
As I walked down the hallway I winced at the familiar sounds my feet made on the wooden floor. When I had been six, before we had come over from Ireland I had been in an accident. My older cousin Malcolm, who still lived overseas and I had been shirking our chores when he got the brilliant idea to take my father's cart and horse and race it against another boy's cart and horse. Needless to say, I being the ultimately smart child that I was decided to go along, and instead of sitting down in the cart, stood up to feel the wind rushing through my hair.  
  
When the cart hit a hidden hole in the ground, my cousin said it happened so fast that I barely had time to make any noise. I just flew into the air and under the sharp hooves of the horse and then one of the wheels of the cart. I awoke in excruciating pain some hours later and the village priest administering the Last Rites to me, my mother weeping and my father standing by, white-faced and silent.  
  
They didn't think I would ever walk again; my leg was badly twisted and scarred up from the ordeal. But walk I did, although now with a limp. Sometimes when the weather turned I needed to use a crutch that my father had carved for me, although I despised the thing and rarely let myself use it.  
  
Pausing by a mirror hanging in the hallway, I studied my reflection with serious eyes. I had nice hair; it was long and dark brown. I wore it in a thick braid normally, although sometimes I tended to want to do other things with it. My eyes were a light grayish green and I had thick black lashes. That's where my looks ended for as well as the limp; I was graced with a nice scar that ran from my temple to my right earlobe.  
  
Folks, I am not a vain person. Nor is my character weak enough that I dissolve because things get tough. But let's face it; I hated looking at myself in the mirror enough that it drove ME insane on a daily basis. I always felt like people were looking at me funny when I'd walk down the street. In reality I don't even think people noticed me beyond the few bastards who felt the need to alert me to what I already knew about my appearance.  
  
Making a face I hurriedly went down to the kitchen and checked on the dough. It had risen so I put the pan into the oven and wiped my hands before remembering that I was supposed to go to Mrs. O'Neal's and pick up the dress she was altering for my aunt Matilda. Frowning, I grabbed my ratty rust colored shawl off of its peg and after hollering up the stairs that I was going to Brooklyn, I began my walk.  
  
By the time I reached Mrs. O'Neal's block I was red-faced and sweating and very cranky. Taking a moment to rest on the stairwell, I almost leapt out of my skin when a hand touched my shoulder. A tall young man backed away, hands held up in front of him, laughing. I relaxed when I realized who it was.  
  
"Connor you bastard," I shot at him in my lilting brogue. He grinned and placed a hand lightly on my shoulder again. Connor O'Neal was as close to a beau I was going to get. He was twenty, and ran a pick pocketing ring out of his mother's house here on Cardinal Street in Brooklyn. If my Aunt Matilda ever heard about that she'd drop dead from shock. My aunt was no stranger to the seedy underbelly of the city, but she believed Connor capable of doing no wrong, as did his mother and anyone else who didn't know him.  
  
Green eyes winked at me and he brushed a shock of his strawberry red hair out of his eyes. All of Mrs. O'Neal's brood had the same hair color and eye color. While the rest varied, that was the one way you could tell they were all related. Mrs. O'Neal's husband called them all his 'matching set of children' and grumbled constantly that they had finished the collection at child number two, why they needed any more was beyond him. Mrs. O'Neal would only calmly yet tartly tell him there was a way she could remedy that to which the patriarch of the O'Neal family would go white and retreat.  
  
Connor was gesturing to another young man standing behind him, and when this one came into view I squinted up at him from my ungraceful sprawl on the front stoop. This young man wasn't very tall, and was lean. He wore a gray cap that almost looked too large for his head, and had dirty blonde hair with bluish-green eyes that seemed to look right through you. His skin was pale and tinged with yellow. I wondered if he was ill but realized that most of the street kids looked like that. He had a hard smile but as I would later learn his smirk could charm the whiskers off a cat.  
  
Red suspenders held up dark trousers, and he wore a white and red gingham shirt with a dirty undershirt visible through the open collar. A key hung on a twisted black cord around his neck, its silver marred with tarnish. The boy was watching me with a raised eyebrow and that mocking, sardonic grin on his narrow face.  
  
"This your girlfriend O'Neal?" I flushed instantly at his cutting tone. Connor lifted me up and steadied me, his arm around my waist an action the other young man noticed and filed away. Frowning at him, Connor shook his head.  
  
"I wouldn't say that exactly Conlon. Fiona Ryan this is Jesse Conlon, leader of the Brooklyn Newsboys." I inclined my head stiffly, swearing under my breath. My leg was killing me; I should have tried to scrounge up the change for a trolley instead of hoofing it all the way to Brooklyn. Jesse was staring coldly at Connor, and he looked down his nose at me briefly.  
  
"It's Spot, not Jesse. Nobody calls me Jesse and gets away with it except for my good buddy Connor here." I shuddered at the coolness of his voice. This was apparently someone who was used to being obeyed and didn't take kindly to any variations to that theme. After mockingly tipping his cap to me, the boy swaggered off, swinging what I noticed then to be a black cane with a fancy gold top to it. I almost smiled at the sight of the slingshot sticking out of his back pocket before I remembered that most of the street kids used them with a painful accuracy.  
  
"Come on ya pain in my arse, let's get ye upstairs. My mam would have a fit if she knew I had let you sit out here like this." And with that Connor started walking slowly, letting me lean on him. I forgot my pain momentarily as I remembered the piercing eyes of Spot Conlon. Somehow I didn't think had seen the last of that boy whatsoever. It wasn't a comforting assurance, let me tell you. Sighing I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, forgetting about everything else but walking. It was going to be a long afternoon. 


End file.
